Amid a brief halt in arms shipments to Ukraine and new spending commitments reached at the recent NATO summit, Washington faces a rare opportunity to scale back its overcommitment in Europe. But that path is far from guaranteed. As American diplomacy pushes for an end to the Ukraine war, it’s worth examining the long-term security entanglements the United States may be drawn into under a post-war settlement
First, the United States will probably have a significant logistical stake in maintaining Ukraine’s American-furnished equipment. Ukraine has been furnished with the full spectrum of U.S. systems. This includes Patriot, NASAMS, HAWK, and a myriad of other air defense assets; HIMARS, howitzers, and mortar systems for the artillery fight; and Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and Strykers for the maneuver forces. Supplying parts is not a zero-sum game, either. Modern military equipment is not just soldered together; it is highly engineered and intricate, relying on sometimes hundreds of physical subcomponents and software components. Many of these components, critical to the employment of a given system, do not have robust inventories in place. Supplying them requires robbing Peter to pay Paul: A given part will have to be drawn from elsewhere in the NATO or U.S. inventories.
Second, because Ukraine has been furnished with American kit, the United States will be tasked with integrating Ukraine’s military into the broader European defense scheme. This stems from Ukraine’s increased embeddedness in the NATO security architecture. As recently as last year, NATO called for Ukraine’s “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership.” This is not just rhetoric. Ukraine receives intelligence and targeting data that is timely and actionable enough that the United States is “part of the kill chain now,” according to New York Times reporting. Ukraine is receiving not just legacy equipment like American Stinger missiles, but also data-linked American systems that feed the data streams of operations centers and friendly platforms.
Author
More on Eurasia
Events on Ukraine-Russia
